Naturalistic observation and participant observation

What are some problems with participant observation?

What are cross-sectional studies?

Research method that compares participants in different groups at the same time

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What is observer bias?

Systematic errors in observation that occur because eof an observer's expectations

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What is the cohort effect?

The potential difference in groups of a cross-sectional study that are due to some external third variable

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What is the experimenter expectancy effect?

Actual change in the behavior of the people or nonhuman animals being observed that is due to the expectations of the observer

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What are correlational studies?

Research method that examines how variable are naturally related in the real world without any attempt by the researcher to alter them or assign causation between them

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What is the disadvantage of a correlational study?

Can't be used to support causal relationships or show the direction of the cause/effect relationship between variables or identify third variable confound

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What is the directionality problem?

The problem encountered in correlational studies where you can't determine which variable may have caused changed in the other

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What is the third variable problem?

A problem when the researcher cannot directly manipulate the variables; this they can't be confident that there's not a confounding third variable at play

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What kind of situations in experiments often lead to a lack of external validity?

Overly artificial situations

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What is culturally sensitive research?

Research that takes into account the role that culture plays in determining thoughts, feelings, and actions

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What are observational techniques?

A research method of careful and systematic assessment and coding of overt behavior

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What is coding?

Determining what previously defined category the behavior fits into

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What is reactivity?

When the knowledge that one is being observed alters the behavior being observed

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What is the Hawthorne effect?

Reactivity (workers at the Hawthorne plant)

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What are the advantages and disadvantages of case studies?

Can provide extensive data about one or a few individuals/organizations, but can be very subjective and can't be generalized to the population

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What are the advantages and disadvantages to interactive methods?

Can gather lots of data like through self-report methods, inexpensive, easy to give, fast, can explore new lines of questioning; BUT can include self-report bias, social desirability bias, or incorrect information recall

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What is experience sampling?

When researchers take several samples of the participants' experiences over time and determine how the responses vary over time

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What is the better-than-average effect?

When people tend to describe themselves in especially positive ways because they believe things about themselves that aren't necessarily true

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What is the response performance method?

A research method in which researchers quantify perceptual of cognitive processes in response to a specific stimulus; uses reaction times and response accuracy

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What are advantages/disadvantages of the response performance method?

It's easy to study cognition/perception, less affected by observer bias or subject reactivity; BUT it’s costly and time-consuming and less likely to be useful in real world settings

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Why are reaction times particularly good as dependent measures?

You can't fake them.

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What else, in addition to reaction time, can be measure in response performance studies?

Response accuracy

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What are stimulus judgments?

Judging whether the two stimuli are the same or different in some way, like size, color, shape, etc.

What are some examples of psychophysiological assessment?

What is electrophysiology?

A data collection method that measure electircal activity in the brain using electrodes; measured by an EEG

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What are the advantages/disadvantages of body/brain activity methods?

Identify physical responses to external events: changes in bodily activity (polygraphs), electrical brain activity (EEG), localizing brain activity (PET, fMRI, TMS) or brain structure (MRI); BUT deemphasize brain localization, are better for speed of response but not activity, or vice versa, and are correlational and have the third variable problem and directionality problem

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What is brain imaging?

Measures changes in the rate of blood flow to different brain regions to monitor which regions are active during tasks/events

Producing a high-res image of the brain, brain structure, location of brain damage or tumors

What is fMRI for?

What is TMS for?

Uses magnetic coils to disrupt the electrical signals of specific brain areas, like over the language area to impair speech; can only be used for short durations; very useful for examining which brain regions are necessary for specific psychological functions

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What are transgenic mice?

Mice produced by manipulating the genes in developing mouse embryos by inserting foreign DNA into the genes

Observing people without them knowing it; what topics are too personal or inappropriate; how the studies will affect the participants' sense of privacy

Describe the ethical issues surrounding access to data.

Describe the ethical issues surrounding informed consent.

Respect and trust for participants; voluntary knowledgeable decision to participate; special considerations for minors/mentally ill regarding legal guardians; using deception only when other methods aren't appropriate and when deception doesn't involve situations that would strongly affect people's willingness to participate; careful debriefing after the deception